THEY WERE FORGOTTEN: Reader(s) may have already gathered that I am not a fan of President Trump. There are about a million reasons why I am not, starting with the fact that I went to high school near New York City and later lived in the city for 7 years--so I am more familiar with The Donald than most Americans. It's not that the man has never done any good things; it's just that with The Donald, it's always about him and I don't think that's a very good trait in a President (it also applied to Obama but in a much more limited sense--and it wasn't a good thing then either).

I choose to believe that, on some level, Donald Trump does care about all those blue-collar Americans who sent him to the White House. He's certainly not like Hillary, who could never stand to be around working people (witness all her meet-n'-greets with wealthy donors) where Trump would take selfies with crazed Green Bay Packers fans wearing cheeseheads.

Here's the problem: Hillary Clinton knows full well about the plight of working Americans and what caused it (a lot of that had to do with her husband) and probably could think of a couple of ways to make their lot better. But she doesn't care, because she's all about the dollar bill--witness her coziness with Wall Street.

And assuming as I do that Donald Trump really does care, his unique brand of self-centered cluelessness more or less guarantees that he isn't going to do much for Joe and Janie Lunchbox either. Want proof? If The Donald had any idea about how to improve the lot of the working class, he 1) never would have picked Koch stooge Mike Pence as his Vice President; 2) would keep even more dangerous Koch stooge (i.e. as in Speaker of the House) Paul Ryan on a very, very, very short leash--this is, after all, the man who wants to gut Social Security and Medicare, to say nothing of Obamacare; 3) would never have even thought of dismantling the protections that could serve as a stopgap against Wall Street ushering in another global financial meltdown.

I am beginning to feel bad for American workers who voted for Trump, because I do not believe that everybody needs to be a swell college-educated know-it-all who lives in Seattle or New York and drinks ten-dollar cups of coffee* to have their opinion count in the American conversation. I do know that life improved for those kinds of folks under the Obama presidency--because it is those kinds of folks who ushered Obama into the White House (twice) and saw their stock portfolios grow and grow while he was President. But Obama wasn't known to spend so much time in, say, Sharon PA or Huntington WV or Spokane WA--blue-collar towns where people were hurting, and hurting badly. Hillary Clinton showed zero interest in those Americans too. Only Bernie Sanders was talking to them, and the Democratic National Committee stripped away his chance of being President by throwing all their weight behind Hillary.

So go and figure why these desperate people threw in their lot with Trump. It really doesn't matter in the end that they have probably been hoodwinked (I am still hoping that Trump at least restrains Paul Ryan from leaving working Americans literally dying in the streets, because I know that Ryan would like to do just that). But I do know that Trump needs to distance himself from the dipshit wing of the Republican party, the Scott Walkers and Sam Brownbacks and Bobby Jindals and Paul Ryans, because these monsters represent the complete antithesis of helping working-class America get back onto its feet--the very idea that propelled Trump into the White House, and one that I think is a worthy idea (for all that almost all liberal pundits disagree with me).

Working-class Americans have been excluded from the American discussion for far too long, and that is exactly the reason why we now have to deal with a Trump presidency. For all of you armchair liberals, "funsters" with your mountain-bike racks and cushy geek jobs, ultrarich assholes who don't care a whit about your suffering countrymen--the rent has come due. And don't say you didn't see it coming.

*full disclosure: I am a college-educated know-it-all who has lived in both Seattle and New York, though you won't ever see me paying ten bucks for a cup of coffee.